World Chile Valparaiso Valparaíso

Alex's Semestre en Santiago!

Falling in love Sep 3, 2009

After visiting three towns in Chile, Isla Negra, Vina de Mar, and Valparaiso, I fell a little more in love.

We left Wednesday morning for our first stop, Isla Negra. Once we got there, we headed for the beach. It was a cool, cloudy day, but it was all still beautiful. We climbed all over the big rocks to get the best views of the ocean, then we all played some frisbee...that's the life. After the beach, we all got empanadas for lunch (empanadas may be the sole reason I gain at least 10 pounds while I am here...the fried bread and cheese is too much to resist). After lunch, we saw the house of Pablo Neruda. The house was beautiful and my favorite part was his bedroom which looked right out onto the ocean.

After Isla Negra, we headed for Vina del Mar where we would spend the night. After checking into our hotel, we headed out into the city. We ended up at another beach where we just sat,relaxed, and watched the sun set. Again, cna it get any better? We got pizza for dinner, and then decided we would go out for the night. It was a wednesday night, but the bars and discoteques were still full. We arrived at our first discoteque where we decided to start our own danceparty on the dance floor. After several stares, other Chileans finally started to come and dance too. We were pretty proud of ourselves for starting the dance party. After that discoteque, we decided to try out another. We ended up at the most popular discoteque in Vina. The inside was uniquely decorated. It was pretty dark and filled with smoke. We didnt need to start our own dance party here because everyone was already dancing! I felt at home when a Michael Jackson medly came on, followed by "Like a Virgin". We all had a great time dancing, and later on in the night, two men were drumming onstage to the latin music. It was a very fun night.

Waking up exhausted on Thursday, we headed for Valparaiso, the next city over. We took a guided tour through the beautiful unique city which used to be the poorest in Chile. Now, the city is being revitalized. What is so neat about Valpo. is that in every day life, people need to use funiculars to get up the 24 hills that make up the city. We went to the top of three of them. The areas we saw up in the hills were breathtaking and hard to capture in a picture. This place was like nothing I have ever seen before; filled with so much character and culture. I would love to just sit up there all day. For lunch, we ate at the top of one of the hills while we loked out onto a beautiful view. Doesn't get much better.